Chetan,
(Fortunately --or not, I am completing my PhD and thus are around the clock editing behind the computer... I can keep up with the ping-pong.)
I'll do my best but again it will have to be trough my own lens or fiction, which indeed might differ from yours or everybody's else's:
There is no such thing as a unique reality. Remember that all post-structuralist authors make an effort to eradicate any vestiges of metaphysical thinking still circulating in modern philosophy, Metaphysical thinking -another name for Platonism-- traces all differences back to one. By contrast, modern philosophy acknowledges that you always take a particular perspective into whatever you set your eyes.
So when Foucault claims that he was fabricating his own fictions -conventional historians may call these 'histories'--on the basis of power-knowledge relations, he is not implying that he is lying. Rather, he means that he is providing a very specific rendering of a set of events that he is analysing in the light of the power-knowledge grid.
Another way to put it, acknowledging your own fiction -or position - in the world has nothing to do with falling into sheer relativism, let alone nihilism. It is rather an act of humility which is compensated for an increase in stamina to sustain your position -or fiction- in
face of criticism.
Florence Maurice-Amondi
(I use my full fictitious signature as I am setting out views of my own)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"The only tribute to thought [...] is precisely to use it,
to deform it, to make it groan and protest." -Michel Foucault
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
(Fortunately --or not, I am completing my PhD and thus are around the clock editing behind the computer... I can keep up with the ping-pong.)
I'll do my best but again it will have to be trough my own lens or fiction, which indeed might differ from yours or everybody's else's:
There is no such thing as a unique reality. Remember that all post-structuralist authors make an effort to eradicate any vestiges of metaphysical thinking still circulating in modern philosophy, Metaphysical thinking -another name for Platonism-- traces all differences back to one. By contrast, modern philosophy acknowledges that you always take a particular perspective into whatever you set your eyes.
So when Foucault claims that he was fabricating his own fictions -conventional historians may call these 'histories'--on the basis of power-knowledge relations, he is not implying that he is lying. Rather, he means that he is providing a very specific rendering of a set of events that he is analysing in the light of the power-knowledge grid.
Another way to put it, acknowledging your own fiction -or position - in the world has nothing to do with falling into sheer relativism, let alone nihilism. It is rather an act of humility which is compensated for an increase in stamina to sustain your position -or fiction- in
face of criticism.
Florence Maurice-Amondi
(I use my full fictitious signature as I am setting out views of my own)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"The only tribute to thought [...] is precisely to use it,
to deform it, to make it groan and protest." -Michel Foucault
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *